It was not their fault that they were spotted by him while pleasuring themselves shamelessly. Nor was it his fault – he had not planned on spying on the young housewife that was his tenant.
Either way, as Narain slowly climbed down the metal stairway he saw and was transfixed by the sight of Shanthi, his tenant's young wife, pinching her own nipples and mauling her breasts while a woman had her head busy between the her legs.
He was over 70 years and he had cursed his luck for having to climb to the third floor to where the water tanks were. There was no place left to dry his clothes and no one to help him either. He had slowly climbed one step at a time, hung out his clothes to dry and was climbing down, wrapped in only a thin bathing towel.
Since few ever came to the rooftop and still fewer climbed that metal ladder to the third roof, the women had thought themselves safe from discovery so long as the room door was shut.
But the elevation of the stairway allowed Narain a full view through the ventilation window. The woman who he considered young enough to be his daughter was opened out and in a sexual position he did not know could exist, certainly not between two women as far as he knew.
For that matter, neither had Shanthi planned this encounter. It was a most unexpected turn of events. She had no clue till just a short while ago that one woman could pleasure another one like this.
As most Indian housewives do, Shanthi had asked her maid Maniamma to give her a massage. This is almost a routine act in most middle class houses in India. It happens in millions of homes all over India, every afternoon.
Maniamma, her maid knelt at the foot of the bed and grabbed Shanthi's ankles. Inadvertently Shanthi's legs had shifted and she had given a view of her silken, beautiful fair legs to Maniamma. Initially, Maniamma was merely captivated by the fair and smooth complexion of her madam, which compared favorably with her own sun-roughed skin and dark complexion.
As a Tamilian woman Maniamma was a chocolatey dark. The cultural obsession with fairness merely led her to admire Shanthi akka's skin. (She called her Shanthi akka, which meant elder sister.)
But it was the smoothness of the skin that made her slide her hand further up those curvaceous legs. That was fine with Shanthi for she needed the strong woman's hands to ease the stress and aches she felt after the daily chores.
But Maniamma did not expect to feel the frisson of pleasure she felt today when she moved up those silken legs. In one instant the massage ceased to be a chore and her body responded with pleasure at the opportunity to touch Shanthi akka.
She leaned back on her haunches as she worked the toes and then forward to rub the legs. And with each successive reach forward she moved up a little further. Soon, her hands were deep inside the folds of Shanthi's saree and up to and beyond her knees.
It was only when Maniamma reached her thighs that Shanthi felt the sexual overtone in Maniamma's touch. She had no way of knowing it, but by then Maniamma was wet between her legs. Apart from the pleasure of caressing Shanthi akka's smooth, silken legs, the rocking back and forth mimicked to a great extent the act of riding a man, a sumptuous, throbbing cock sliding in and out of a gaping, wet, grabbing cunt.
Maniamma's mind played tricks and she was wet, flowing and flushed from her private, sexually intense thoughts. She had enough and more men on call and she could go to any of them for a quick bout of pleasure taking. All of them openly lusted her for she was a sexual live-wire. It was there in the strength of her body but also in her demeanor.
In her working class community, relationships were more fluid and boundary-less than in Shanthi's middle class community. The men and the women, older and younger were a constantly shifting population. They shuttled between village and city on various agendas. So even though she was married, Maniamma found herself in a different place than her husband on enough number of occasions. And she took her pleasure where she could get it depending on who was in town.
Sometimes she did find herself fucking someone else even though her own husband was in town. It might be someone whose wife was away and he was in need. It was part of the support system of their community to meet each other's need. She could not only be asking; she also had to give. It was the same whether it was money, stocks of goods, a retailing spot, a house that had to be covered because someone needed a day off – or someone without spouse needed sex.
Over time, favorites emerged. And within her circle in which this tacit understanding existed she was almost everyone's favorite. It did lead to a simmering jealousy amongst the other women and sometimes manifested in fights over turf or other trivial things. The sexual jealousy caused more fury and it was more sustained than any other kind of fight.
It was the fact that Maniamma was in her early forties that made her such a favorite with the men. She had the sensitivity to spot a particular need. And the skill to fill it.
For instance there was the time when Sekhar came to her with the need to be animal. She had knelt on all fours and allowed him to maul her and treat her like a bitch. On another occasion Velu had need comforting and she had mothered him, holding him to her breasts and rocking him gently as his emotions bubbled up along with his orgasm.
She knew how to treat men as per their moods and needs and an expertise to match that – and they knew it. Some even wished for their wives to travel or Maniamma's husband to go away for a bit so they could have more of her.
But never before had she been sexual with a woman. And she found this attraction to her mistress intriguing. She thought she needed to later go find one of the men to satiate her desire. But she was not done with caressing Shanthi akka today.
She called her akka. It was the manner in which the working classes were meant to address their masters. In fact, Shanthi was younger than her. She was twenty-two and had been married just for a couple of years. Shanthi's husband was a couple of years older than her. He was eager for sex as young men are prone to being but he was still learning the art of pleasuring a woman, having been a virgin on his wedding day.
Their sex life was full and active with her husband fucking her every night and often in the morning before heading out to work. There were a few occasions when he came by in the afternoon and could not have been bothered about making excuses to Maniamma. He had ushered the maid out of the room and shutting the door fucked his wife with the vigor and zest Shanthi had come to accept and expect.
Maniamma had smiled and voyeuristically enjoyed listening to the moans and squeals that filled the house on those occasions. Shanthi always came out in a very business like fashion and drove Maniamma to do more chores to cover her own embarrassment at her husband's brazen behavior.
